There's been a breathtaking swing in Putin's popularity among Republicans since Trump entered the fray

Vladimir Putin's favorability rating has taken an amazing turn
among Republicans since Donald Trump began praising the Russian
president.

According to
a YouGov/Economist poll, Putin's favorability rating in July
2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, was -54 among
Democrats and -66 among Republicans.

A poll from
the same outlets released in August 2016 showed that Putin's
favorability rating among Democrats remained identical. But the
Russian leader's rating among Republicans improved dramatically,
from -66 to -27.

Taking a closer look, in the 2014 poll, 3% of Republicans had
very favorable views of Putin in addition to 7% who had somewhat
favorable views. That poll showed that 25% of Republicans had
somewhat unfavorable views, while a whopping 51% had very
unfavorable views of Putin.

The August 2016 poll showed that some of those numbers took a
drastic swing.

In that survey, the percentage of Republicans who viewed him very
unfavorably dipped from 51% to 22%, and those who viewed him
somewhat favorably increased from 7% to 19%. In addition, the
percentage of Republicans who answered that they didn't know how
they felt increased from 15% to 26%.

Trump again heaped praise on Putin during NBC's
Commander-in-Chief Forum on Wednesday.

"He is really very much of a leader," Trump said of Putin. "You
can say, 'Oh, isn't that a terrible thing,' I mean, the man has
very strong control over his country. Now, it's a very different
system, and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in
that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has
been a leader."